1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a test apparatus, a test method, a measurement apparatus, and a measurement method. Particularly, the present invention relates to a test apparatus and a test method for testing jitter tolerance, and to a measurement apparatus and a measurement method for measuring jitter transfer characteristic.
2. Description of the Related Art
Devices such as semiconductor devices perform data transfer with other devices. As one example of the manner for data transfer between devices, there is known a source synchronous manner, in which a data signal and a strobe single indicating the timing at which the data signal should be received are transferred in parallel.
Signals transferred between devices might include a jitter. The jitter included in the signals transferred between devices influences the quality of the data transfer. Accordingly, for example, device manufacturers who handle the devices for performing high rate transfer with other devices test the jitter tolerance of the devices using a test apparatus before shipment to guarantee the quality of the devices.
Some devices that employ the source synchronous manner are given a jitter tolerance for the data signal and a jitter tolerance for the strobe signal separately in the specs. In testing such a device, the test apparatus has to separately perform the test on the jitter tolerance for the data signal and the test on the jitter tolerance for the strobe signal.
Further, devices that perform high rate transfer with other devices are given a defined value in the specs, that is smaller than a predetermined value, as the jitter to be included in their output signal. Hence, there has been a demand for a measurement apparatus which can measure what level of jitter is included in the signal output from the devices, in order that such jitter definition can be guaranteed.